Fundstrat’s Tom Lee is treating September’s crash fear as a contrarian signal. He says a market this braced for weakness could rally instead, carrying Bitcoin (BTC) toward $150,000.
Lee has not dropped his correction call. He has moved it, pointing to the September 15 Federal Reserve (Fed) meeting as the moment that decides direction.
The September Fear Lee Is Betting Against
The fear has an evidence base, because across 10 US midterm election years since 1986, the average stock market low landed on September 2.
Those lows followed an average slide of 16.77% from the prior high. That history is what makes the current dangerous September pattern worth watching.
This year adds a hawkish twist. Three Fed presidents voted for a rate hike in July, not a cut. Chair Kevin Warsh then used his first Jackson Hole speech to put inflation first. Six-month PCE inflation was running at 4.1%.
Bonds tell the same story, with the 30-year Treasury yield has held above 5%, well clear of an effective fed funds rate near 3.63%.
“I’m actually now thinking because of all this mounting concern, the market might surprise us to the upside,” Lee said, suggesting he sees a crowd leaning too far one way.
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Why September 15 Decides Direction
Lee spent August expecting those worries to converge and cost equities roughly 10%. Weak seasonality, hike talk and the AI data center backlash all pointed the same way.
His base case now is that policymakers neither hike nor cut.
“If the Fed doesn’t cut, doesn’t hike, which is our base case, I think actually the markets could rally very strongly,” he added in a CNBC interview.
Should the pullback slip into October, Lee thinks it could start above 8,000 on the S&P 500. The low might land near 7,300.
Bitcoin Could Reach $150,000, Tom Lee Says
Bitcoin’s current price level sits near $78,875, up only 0.3% over 24 hours. BTC still trades about 37% below its record from October 2025.
Lee calls the past year a shallow crypto winter caused by forced selling, not broken fundamentals. Very few investors still hold crypto, he argues.
He counts four catalysts.
- Crypto led all macro assets in the third quarter
- The four-year crypto cycle ends next month
- Korean traders are rotating back from AI stocks
- The CLARITY Act, a US market structure bill setting which regulator oversees digital assets, could pass this year
Rising institutional crypto ETF inflows reinforce his view that larger buyers are positioning for a strong fourth quarter.
Lee still treats $150,000 as possible for Bitcoin, alongside an S&P 500 above 8,200. For Bitcoin, that constitutes a 1.9 times gain, or about 2x. Both rest on earnings estimates that keep climbing.
Fresh jobs and inflation prints land before the meeting. Lee says weak readings on both would stop traders pricing a hike at all.
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